


Diphylleia Grayi

by Arnediad



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: & explicit details [nature of wording], Codependency, Genesis being done with everything, M/M, Not A Happy Ending, Rating changed because: swearing, Sephiroth struggling with his sexuality, Some not great sex aspects, Unhealthy Relationships, large angst, repost, somewhat AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:34:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26407321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arnediad/pseuds/Arnediad
Summary: Sephiroth can’t conscience being attracted to men, but Genesis can deal with it...[...until he can’t.]
Relationships: Genesis Rhapsodos/Sephiroth
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	Diphylleia Grayi

The eighteenth of September.

Sephiroth remembers the date because it was a monumental shift in the makeup of his existence. And he’d always been pragmatic...always relied on hard...cold evidence more than he relied on anything else. Verity was kind to him, because data was never embroiled with emotion; evidence-based certainty was comfortable...easy. It was what he was taught; what he lived and breathed and what he understood to be a facet of his reality. He couldn’t understand other people...couldn’t understand why they didn’t want to live with the world around them instead of focusing on convoluted complexities like _emotion_ and _dreams_. Imagination was a mousetrap disguised as a muse. Inspiration was an entangling deadfall shrouded in determination. He would never fall to illusion...would never fall to weakness or wishfulness because his life...his life was not meant for wishes.

It was raining.

He knows it was raining because his eidetic memory conjures the phantasmic images of water clinging to scarlet eyelashes. They shiver...like tremulous gemstones in his sphere of psychic recollection...perfect...imperfect. And...like the concept of existence...he had never cared about rain before either. Organic...necessary for growth and precipitation, an element of geographical formation...none of it mattered. But that day, _that_ day it mattered. Rain mattered because it sluiced over his lips and the pair just before him...ran into creases and seams and flushed cerise. When they met...when that mouth met his, he could taste the earth on an adroit tongue. Thick, aqueous...swirling over his palette...warmth in his belly, elastic over his epidermis. _Why_ he didn’t know...only that the grit and silt of the soil was mixed betwixt...bewitching in its complexity...dangerous in its allure.

_”You look so lonely...all the time.”_

He remembers being confused.

That was-at the time-a new feeling...and he didn’t like it because he’d always been so sure of himself. Attraction...love...copulation...they were things he had never considered because he didn’t think they were going to be facets of his existence. As a SOLDIER, existence was not a guaranteed thing in the first place; survival from one day to the next, especially on the field, was an eternal constant. And he’d always imagined that if he kissed someone their skin would be like silk...that they would smell of something flowered...that their breasts would be heavy in his palms, nipples pebbled but yielding...rosebuds beneath his fingertips. Edacious curves; seductive...feminine. Sephiroth had imagined finding himself in the arms of someone with long lashes, full lips...and something petaled, pliant, and soft between her legs that would give way to his tongue; like water parting before a stone. He entertained such visions rarely; only when the need grew strongest and didn’t think of them otherwise...but they were still a facet of his reality. It was biology-or so he told himself-nothing else.

_”You need to learn to give in…”_

He recalls enjoying it.

He enjoyed it, and the body before him was all hard lines...creamy skin covered in miles of scarlet leather and just the hint of the scruff of a beard. The hands that rose to cup his cheeks were calloused...fingers slender but strong and nimble and _fierce_. Bunched muscles...the scent of standard issue soap and a broad chest pressed up against him...flat...unyielding. The breath exchanged between them was ragged and rough, hungry in a masculine, ravenous way that was so adverse to what his mind conjured up but so much _better_. Flat against an alleyway-not a soft bed with silk sheets-in the thick of battle with enemy blood on rubicund and silver blades...the scent of copper and a warm...swollen hardness against him...rubbing up into him until he was delirious and drunk with it. Anger...there was anger and experience, resentment and admiration, respect and derision, and there were not enough _words_ to describe the euphoria of it. A hand cupping him in that rough-playful manner...flashing sapphire and a knowing smirk and he _came_ so hard his vision went white.

_”Hey-!”_

Sephiroth remembers running away.

Specifically; he remembers staggering up from the wall and pushing the body before him so hard that its owner grunted in surprise. He staggered, high off it all but still panicked. Someone said something, _he_ said something but he didn’t know what it was. He only knew that it was exasperated and long-suffering. Staying was out of the question...talking was out of the question because he didn’t know what this was. Back into the fray...back into thick of it all and he didn’t remembering slaughtering so many with such a vicious, blind purpose before that. Masamune was hungry...ravenous really, though for what he didn’t know. Maybe he was the one who was starving; maybe he’d always starving and he just didn’t know it until then. It had always been duty...always service and meting out his orders but after that...it changed.

Everything changed.

Their deployment ended; they came back to HQ and he couldn’t stop thinking about it. In some ways, he resented the encounter because he’d never have considered it otherwise. And the scientist...the analyst in him insisted that it wasn’t right...that something about him was broken because biologically it was an adversity...it didn’t make any sense. He could gain nothing in terms of reproduction from it, so the allure of it was a contraindication to his purpose. Hojo wouldn’t allow such a gene to exist in him if he ever wanted him to reproduce...if he wanted to ensure the continuity of his lineage. Of course, the mad scientist had never indicated that that was something he desired in the first place, but for him to be attracted to men when he was the epitome of genetic engineering’s finest endeavors was asinine.

That didn’t stop him from fantasizing.

It also didn’t stop the individual in question from pursuing him like he was an insurgent in friendly territory. He was pervasive, insistent, stubborn, and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Normally, Sephiroth would have had no problem with walking away; he’d walked away from so many other things before that that this should have been something negligible. But they lived together...ate together...trained together. Every time he saw the lithe body that had been pressed up against him going through a set of movements his chest felt tight...and arousal was never far behind. He knew...he knew because he made a point of exaggerating things that accented his already-ridiculous aesthetic. When he swung Rapier he’d toss his head in that maddening way that made his hair glitter in the light of the halogens in the sparing room. If Sephiroth managed to get him up against a wall during a spar he would bare that perfect...arcing, pale and _delicious_ neck until the silver-haired FIRST was fair trembling to run his tongue along his jugular...to close his mouth on it...to _bite_. He’d always been able to engage in combat in a manner that was based on muscle memory and mechanism. Tactics were like physics… _what goes up must come down_ … _force is equal to the change momentum_. He supposed… in some ways that this was still physics. After all, something had been set in motion that-apparently-was staying in motion.

Now… _now_ , however...everything was _electric._

In retrospect it didn’t take him long to fold...and that in of itself-upon reflection-was shameful. Sephiroth caved in the showers; gave in to _Genesis_. He crept up behind him while he was rinsing off the salty sweat from a training regimen and pressed every inch of his wet, _warm_ physiciality against him. His second-in-command undulated against his backside until he whirled around-suffused with indignance, confusion, and lust-and slammed the redhead into the tiles...rutted up against him, mouth against mouth...the groan spilling from his lips filthy and a little desperate as it intermingled with velvet...smirking chuckles and moans. Sephiroth had never disliked Genesis in the past...had never resented him his jealousy or his competition because it had never mattered to him. In that moment, he _hated_ Genesis. Hated him for making him want something that he didn’t understand...for making him waver in his certitude...in his commitment to his cause. And yet he didn’t...he didn’t really. Even has he closed his fingers around that pale throat and squeezed until the older man’s eyes were glassy he acknowledged that hate was the last thing he felt. No...he felt...warm…

_”Ohhh…”_

...Something warm in the chest.

His orgasm was-if possible-more devastating than the first. This time, his companion joined him in climax, and his ears were ringing...his heartbeat slamming in his chest. When the afterglow had faded, he punched the redhead square in the face. Genesis laughed...laughed even as blood blossomed over his lips...eyes a riot between mockery, despair, and a kind of knowing that shook him to his core. Those eyes said that he was a _liar_ , that he was weak and hiding and blind. They looked at him like he was a teenager throwing a tantrum because he couldn’t go out late at night; like he was infantile in what he knew despite _years_ longer in service. And he understood...he understood that in this he did not have the upper hand, and the Commander was fully aware of it. He was aware that he couldn’t stop...that he couldn’t stop and that this would never end unless the redhead called for halt.

 _’Frottage’_ he’d called it.

The General wasn’t aware of the terminology for what they’d done until a week later. Until they were alone in a debriefing room and Genesis made a deprecating remark with the word slathered inside of it. And the way he said it dripped an insatiable venom that had him struggling through the subsequent meeting when the rest filed in. Had him shifting in order to try and alleviate the aching tightness in his leathers while blue eyes watched him knowingly over a field report...a smile playing over cerise lips. It was those things...those little, subtle things that only the redhead seemed to know how to do that drove him to ruin. It wasn’t like it wasn’t common...wasn’t like men didn’t seek out relationships with men...even in SOLDIER. But _he_ had never asked for this, had never explored it before it was shoved upon him and the black void that came with it, the endless question that was his identity had him sitting up late at night with a bottle of vodka staring at the walls of his apartment as his existence spun out of control.

_”Even powerful men can be afraid of petty things…”_

It didn’t stop.

 _They didn’t stop_. It became a regular thing...though not always necessarily a consensual thing...not verbally anyway. Genesis came to him when he knew he wouldn’t be able to resist...when he was tired...when he’d been on away missions for days...when he was so drunk he couldn’t see straight. The first time they had sex he was halfway to completely pissed and it felt like he was drowning in him...drowning in the wet...clenching heat of him as they fucked against the wall just outside Administration. It was a hurried affair in the dead of night. He’d staggered up there to complete his paperwork and ten minutes later he was buried in the redhead’s ass; the wall they’d hastily selected shuddering as the redhead wailed his ecstacy to the heavens. Hands-Sephiroth’s hands-tight in that gathering of blood red follicular brilliance...mouth sucking a flowering bruise into an alabaster neck as he spent himself deep…as his groin throbbed and his eyes grew wide.

They kissed afterwards.

He supposed it was their first real kiss. There was affection there...something deeper than the pain they were inflicting upon each other. Slow...deep...searching and when he drew away, when he pulled his cock out of the redhead’s ass and watched his release trickle down a pale thigh...it was an ache he couldn’t assuage. It was painful in that tight, chest-squeezing way he hadn’t felt since he was five...since he was hiding in a cupboard while Hojo sent a hoard of researchers after him to find him and strap him to a gurney so they could slice him open. But it wasn’t the same kind of agony...this was different...so different. This was _wanting_ in a way that felt like falling into a bottomless void...like a darkness with no end. He watched his Commander pull up his leathers and throw him a sultry wink before kissing him once more...watched him walk away-slightly stiff, somewhat ginger-until he was alone in the hallway.

 _”Ta, darling”_.

There was always more to explore.

They came to a tenuous...unspoken agreement regarding sex. _’Take what you want and expect nothing back’_...essentially. The first time Genesis fucked him Sephiroth lost consciousness; came in a long...low pull...spilled against fingers tight against his cock as he smashed his face into red velvet pillows to muffle his groans. The redhead tongued him out afterwards...took his spend from him like he was retracting something promised until the younger man didn’t know up from down...didn’t know delirium from reality. In public, they were professional...distant. Their spars petered off and Hewley pulled him aside...told him he was worried absolutely sick about both of them. And he’d told him they were fine...that nothing was happening...that their relationship was _’professional’_ and nothing else. Later that night, lying in the sheets with his partner’s seed on his lips...watching as the redhead reached for a pack of cigarettes, he wondered how long it could last. They were glutting themselves on each other...drowning in each other...plunging into an unknown void whose bottom would surely rise up and smash them into pieces.

Sooner than expected.

In regards to his inner ruminations regarding what they were...the answer came sooner than he anticipated. He was able to ignore the literals considering what they were doing when they didn’t talk about it. It was easy to get up...go about his day and descend into depravity when the day was over if he had nothing to categorize it with. It wasn’t a relationship, and he was fine with that. As long as he was walking out the door with great expedience once he’d orgasmed….Sephiroth could delude himself. Life in Shinra didn’t allow for the luxury of relationships; servitude was more important, killing and suffering was more important than love. Once enlisted, it was understood that HQ was husband, wife, parent, sibling, aunt, uncle, grandparent, and cousin. No commitment was of greater importance, no duty was of greater gravity. He was beholden to the company because they had given him shelter, they had trained him to be someone with high status and great privilege.

_”Pretty lonely things seek pretty lonely things...as is their nature…_

...None of that, of course, mattered when it came to falling in love.

And oh, what a fall. Sephiroth didn’t recognize what it was at first...because he had no prior experiences to compare it to. He only knew that he lingered longer after their encounters...that he stopped to touch-when no one was looking, of course-to talk. A part of him wanted to get to know Genesis on a level that was more than professionalism, more than sex. And the more they touched...the more they talked...the further he damned himself. Genesis reciprocated with a great and terrible fervor...with an enthusiasm that left him breathless. And the redhead had never been affectionate, but now he was _everywhere_. They spent hours- _days_ , when they could manage it-lying in bed...mapping every inch of the others’ skin with their mouths. They drank old whiskey Sephiroth found in a back cabinet and Genesis accidentally lit the sofa on fire when they were too drunk to figure out how to extinguish it. And his smile...his _smile_.... When Genesis smiled the world shrunk into a pinpoint that was the man before him...nothing else mattered. If he could make him laugh...make him hope, make him believe in something...the universe could crumble to dust...the stars could wink out and he would die… _in ecstasy._. But despite that...despite everything….there was still duty.

And it was clear that Genesis was done with duty.

The change came slowly...over weeks and months. His redheaded comrade was withdrawn...dissatisfied with the world around him. He started asking more of Sephiroth...starting asking him to define what they were instead of merely using gestures to elucidate what he was feeling. Instead of affection, there was desperation in his eyes...something he tried to hide but did so very poorly. Genesis wanted more...wanted to be together properly. A part of him wanted that just as badly, even if he didn’t want to admit it to himself. The younger man didn’t like what he was bound to anymore than his second-in-command. Day after day...week after week...the same excuses, the same individually-centered drone muttering that what he was doing was right for the greater good even if it wasn’t right for himself. Even if it made him sick at night...staring out at the reactors...looking blankly into the green glow of mako and wishing he could end it all, right there, right then...he didn’t because he was sworn to his purpose.

_”Rich bureaucrats sucking at the tit of corruption...that’s all Shinra is.”_

Genesis didn’t care about purpose.

He should have anticipated it, really. The redhead wasn’t one for rules...for dogma...not for long. The older man was never going to stay in SOLDIER indefinitely. He was, effectively, old enough to retire whenever he wanted. His Commander had helped solidify an unshakeable regime, and now there was no need for him to do so anymore. Now, he was just waiting in the eaves for something- _someone_ -who might never arrive. It was rather like sitting at the dinner table waiting for someone to come home, but instead of minutes...you waited years. And with each passing year the disappointment and resentment grew...the anger grew until they were both stifling with grudges...with words unsaid that needed to be said. So when the spar between three of Shinra’s finest occured...it wasn’t a surprise to anyone...not really. Tension was boiling over...bubbling between them, and when it was finished Genesis was the only one who was hurt...on the outside.

It didn’t-of course-change the fact that Genesis was hurt because _Sephiroth_ was a coward.

The wound didn’t heal...and they didn’t know why. It was frustrating...agonizing to see the older man move gingerly...to see him struggle through things that he normally wouldn’t have struggled to do. And the longer he suffered, the more bitter he was towards the rest of them. There was accusation in his eyes when he looked at Sephiroth now; a quiet _’you did this’_ in those glittering sapphire irises. He had done it...there was no denying it. By refusing to let go...he’d effectively dismissed whatever was between them as unimportant. Genesis began to spend more time in the labs...and Angeal said that he was talking to Hollander. There was something off about it, but the General was too guilty and too wretched to ask him about it...to ask him to open up to him when he had failed to do the same. He could not-in good conscience-lay claim to the redhead when all they’d done was drive each other to pieces. Sephiroth wasn’t comfortable with his attraction to men...with his proclivities towards the male sex. Every time he denied his preferences in front of Genesis, the redhead seemed to die a little bit inside.

_”I’m fine.”_

The eighteenth of September.

Sephiroth remembers the date not because it was the first time he was kissed...but the last time.

Again...it was raining...and again they were in the field...a general reconnaissance check on the edge of the grasslands. Genesis had kept to the back...stayed silent and singular even as they performed the sweep. There was a sense of terrible anticipation between the two of them...a sense of finality. And when they came to a small outpost...a general guarding station between checkpoints...the redhead led him into an alley...and Sephiroth followed. Thunder roared overhead; jagged forks of lightning knifed their way down from the heavens as if prematurely heralding what was to come. The Commander leaned the General up against a wall and he went with it...let the cold stone of the structure press against the back of his neck as those cerise lips paused inches from his own. He was ethereal...Genesis...inhumanely attractive like this...dripping wet...the lament of the sky drenching both of them as they stared at one another...together...yet somehow more alone than ever. Warm lips close over Sephiroth’s and he drank deep; swayed with the kiss as he tasted silt and sky and sorrow.

_“They say skeleton flowers turn transparent when it rains.”_

The older man waited for him to acknowledge his words before pulling back...eyelashes wet with more than the environment around them. Confused...and yet not, Sephiroth cupped a pale cheek and those beautiful sapphire eyes disappeared behind creamy lids.

_“...You’re not so different. When it rains...that’s the only time I really see you.”_

Genesis left.

He left...and he didn’t come back. Like a ghost in the night he was gone like he’d never existed in the first place. Behind him he woke ruin...sorrow, and heartbreak...but he would never know it...because Sephiroth would never tell. And the next time he saw him...he was as pale and as fragile as the precipitation-delicate _Diphylleia Grayi._

….But so was he.

**Author's Note:**

>  **A/N:** Slowly [glacially] resposting things. Copying and pasting abbreviated A/N from other version here: _'sometimes, things do not turn out okay, and you never really know why.'_ I disagree with this at this point, which is why the codependency tag is added in the title. There's the saying by Einstein: _'insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.'_ I think Genesis gets this in this fic, Seph doesn't. Seph is more codependent in this fic in the sense of not acknowledging dysfunctionality, but they're both pretty maladjusted. Lil bit of _'Jar of Hearts'_ -Gen style for ya. Thanks for reading this disaster if you do come upon the repost.
> 
>  **Edit** : want to emphasize the core issue in this fic isn’t really Seph struggling with his sexuality, the metaphor I wanted to present in the text is that there was far more wrong than that, but I’m very wary of leaving that open-ended.


End file.
